I offer up two screen shots showing off identical helms on different races.

This is an Eth (Human) in a plate helm. (My two-hander wielding Champion.)

This is a High Elf in the same plate helm. (My sword-and-board Paladin.)

I noticed it earlier on my Kelari (Dark Elf) Rogue, in that the helm he had just gotten for a quest reward had openings for his ears.* (See below.)

That’s some attention to detail. That the ears of a character are actually taken into account by the armor. (In WoW I remember ears and eyebrows stuck out of the equipment, making it look odd enough to need to hide the helm.)

The armor sets you see are the basic crafted set. Three pieces, one of them the shoulders, you can wear at level 7, the other 3, including helm, at level 11. If you’re playing Rift and wondering where the helm recipe is? It’s found in Meridian (or Sanctum) and the recipe is available after doing some crafting dailies. My Defiant Cleric and Guardian Warrior are both Weapon- *and* Armorsmiths, in addition to mining. (My Rogue (Defiant) and Mage (Guardian) are the foragers who get the things like leather and wood and such that some weapons and armor need.)

Are holes in helms for elves with big ears the sign of a “next-generation” MMO? Jein. I submit they are a step in the right direction.

On this quest reward helm the ear holes look like they’ve been punched with a square punch. (The crafted helm ear openings are much better done.)

And the rogue helm, which is supposed to be leather but looks very metallic and smooth like plate, the holes are square. So they definitely took the ears into account, perhaps less nicely than they did with the plate helm. I’ll post the picture of the rogues helm too, as you do make a point Ratshag.

I do seem to like elves in fantasy settings. Over in WoW I had night elf rogue and hunter, and blood elf death knight and paladin. Here in Rift I’ve got a high elf warrior and a dark elf rogue. In LotRO I have an Elf Champion.

I blame reading too many Elric of Melnibone novels and liking the anti-hero yet sophisticated, and overall decent person, humanoid yet non-human character, and his alien-other outlook on things. (Who doesn’t want to be Elric?)

Now the Melniboneans aren’t elves. But one of Elric’s aspects, another iteration of the Eternal Champion, was Corum who is of the Vadhagh race, and they’re closest to the elves or sidhe, in the celtic tradition, than anyone. (All this in Michael Moorcock’s multiverse universe.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Champion

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